Isidore Okpewho (NHC Fellow, 1997–98)

Fellowship Work Summary, 1997–98

Isidore Okpewho completed work on the second chapter of his book project, to be called A Dark and Dutiful Dyeli: The Poetry of Jay Wright, dealing with the backgrounds and influences on Wright's poetic work—his family circumstances, places where he lived and went to school, and the literary, cultural, social, and political stimuli within the United States to which he has responded in his writing. He corrected proofs on his forthcoming article, "African Mythology and Africa's Political Impasse," and wrote a review essay entitled "Introducing the African Epic—Again!" both for the journal Research in African Literatures; worked on the copy‑edited manuscript for his forthcoming book, Once upon a Kingdom: Myth, Hegemony, and Identity (Indiana University Press), and reviewed a book manuscript for the University of Wisconsin Press. He spoke on "What Africa Means to Jay Wright" at Duke University and Brandeis University and "African Mythology and Africa's Political Impasse" at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He attended the annual conferences of the American Folklore Society (Austin, Texas) and the African Studies Association (Columbus, Ohio).